"A lot of times students are dissatisfied withthe results of University investigations becausethey want a price to be paid,' Mackay-Smith says.

"We can't do much about that," she says,"except to figure out who's hurting and dowhatever we can to stop the hurt and restore thatstudent's educational environment."

Without confidence in their chances forretribution, however, students who know the policyand its usual sentences might have good reason toquestion whether the effort and emotional outlayrequired to proceed with a complaint areworthwhile.

Knowles says he acknowledges that many studentsmay be reluctant to pursue claims of sexualharassment.

"Because the numbers in the report are notnumbers of occurrences of the event, but arenumbers of reported events, any conclusions basedon the movement of those numbers have to becarefully circumscribed," he says.

Indeed, the official numbers are perhapsunreliable because students may not perceive theofficial complaint process as likely to produceadequate results.

Knowles suggests that the best change theUniversity could make may not be one of policy butof attitude and behavior.

"I think that our policies are basically soundand work well," he says. "Still, they would workeven better if we all had a healthy dose of mutualrespect and common sense."

But in the world of sexual harassment, respectand common sense may be inherently absent.

And in the minds of some observers, theFaculty's ambiguous penalties may help to keepthings that way, regardless of whether studentsand faculty are well-acquainted with theUniversity's sexual harassment policy